"You look like a flag," my husband Tom tells me and I smile, because I know what he means. We go through this every summer in the days leading up to the 4th of July. It's a bit ridiculous, I know: cheesy and sentimental and a little over-the-top. But I can't help it.

I dress myself in red, white and blue.

It's my summer compulsion--just as surely as the days become progressively warmer, the color red pushes its way toward the front of my closet. Combine it with the already-busy whites plus the blue of my trusty jeans, and you've got the makings of an American flag.

Tiny white stars on a red background begin to appeal to me this time of year; alternating stripes of blue on a white background (or is it white on a blue background?) look lovely. And for this brief time at the beginning of July, I see red, white and blue everywhere: red flip-flops, red bandannas, ripe, red strawberries in the grocery store. Blue skies, blue jeans, plump blueberries the size of marbles. White puffy clouds, white petunias, white whipped cream. You know where this is heading, right? A resplendent vanilla flag-cake in the fridge, which is a whole new level of flaginess--not only am I wearing it, but I'm eating it, too.

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Actress and Blue Lagoon star Brooke Shields knows a thing or two about the paparazzi. Having been a child star and a young person in the constant eye of the media storm , Brooke has taken it upon herself to teach her children how to handle the media.

Brooke's daughter, Rowan, who is five, knows what to do when the paparazzi strikes. Says Rowan, when asked by her mom what to do when the media strikes, "Well, I look straight ahead and I don't look them in the eye." Shields is sorry her daughter even knows what the word 'paparazzi' means.

Shields says that teaching her children to ignore the press is a healthier way of handling them. The actress knows the paparazzi will be there no matter what she does, so better to ignore them than give them what they want, I guess. Shields is also mom to daughter Grier Hammond, two.

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It's not uncommon to be on a plane with a crying child. However, having the plane actually TURN AROUND and return to the terminal because of a kid's tantrum isn't typical, but that is what happened to a North Carolina mother and her two-and-a-half- year old son with autism.

According to his mother, little Jared Farrell started getting anxious as the plane was taxiing down the runway, and the flight attendant didn't help matters.

"She kept coming over and tugging his seat belt to make it tighter, 'This has to stay tight'. And then he was wiggling around and trying to get out of his seat belt. And she kept coming over and reprimanding him and yelling at him," Janice Farrell, the boy's mother said.

Eventually, one of the pilots left the cockpit to see what the ruckus was about, and tensions between the adults rose, which caused Jared's behavior to get even worse and he started rolling around on the floor. As soon as the pilot returned to his seat, the plane turned back to the terminal.

"The pilot made an announcement that there was a woman and her child on the plane and the child is uncontrollable. And at that point I just broke down," Farrell said.

While it is true that "rules are rules" and Jared was not following the seat belt rule if he was having a fit on the floor, a disorder affecting 1 out of 150 kids just might warrant some training on how best to handle those with autism and making flying the friendly skies...........well, just a little friendlier.

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I usually work in the mornings when the house is quiet, before the rush and hum of our lives takes over the day, like so many parents everywhere--trying to carve out a few extra moments; trying to keep my hand on the slim thread of my life before there were kids, and peanut butter toast and jam-faces to wipe and milk to pour and now, a puppy to feed and walk, too.

But lately, in these quiet, early mornings, I've had company. My middle son Avery wakes to my softest footfalls, and climbs out of bed just one step behind me. I can hear the door to the boys' room open (Avery is careful not to wake anyone else) and the thump of his tiny bottom as he slides down the stairs. Soon enough he's in my lap, head tucked beneath my chin. He doesn't ask for anything; he doesn't try to stop me. He simply sits in the cup of my lap and falls back asleep, while my fingers plink away at the keyboard on the desk.

This is not what I expected, when I learned I'd be a mom to a child with special needs. It's nothing I could have predicted, based on the books I read or the information we got from the hospital. Back when I was a new mom to Avery, I was hungry for stories about moms of kids like mine. I wanted to be able to imagine our future, but all I could come up with was sadness and adult diapers. I needed help.

One mom writing about her life with her son with Down syndrome is Emily Perl Kingsley. In her widely-read essay, "Welcome to Holland," she uses a travel metaphor to explain her new, unexpected life: she'd been planning to go to Italy like everyone else, but the itinerary changed. Her destination was a different place--not better, not worse, just different. Hers would be a trip to Holland.

"Welcome to Holland" came to me via one of the nurses in the NICU. It was a battered, graying photocopy. Someone had taken the time to add a picture of tulips across the top, and at the end there was a little string of stylized Dutch windmills, more than a dozen marching across the bottom of the page.

At the time, I wasn't sure what to make of such a thing. That the woman writing the essay (Emily) had a perspective to share was clear; whether I would come to agree with it, was not. That the person who created the photocopy wanted to help women like me, mothers trying to find their way, was also clear; how these worn, aged pages would aid me, was not.

This is what happened: I began seeing references to Holland everywhere. All the nurses in the NICU wore a particular brand of shoes--they were clogs. There was, improbably, a reconstructed Dutch windmill just off the highway I traveled each day to and from the hospital. And the farmland windmills dotting the wide, open grasslands (which had always looked to me like symbols of the American prairie) made me think of the windmills of Holland. They, in turn, made me think of a simple children's toy--pinwheels. How could I not have seen all this before?

And the same became true of Down syndrome. I began seeing it everywhere--a lady waiting to cross the street on the corner; a young man pushing a grocery cart with his mother; a baby with a tall shock of brown hair; on television, in the news, in the New York Times.

I've been Avery's mama for 5 years already, and it's not just Holland I see. These days, I'm more likely to notice the man walking with the limp; or the young woman with rigidity in her muscles; or the child overwhelmed by sounds. The causes for such things, or the names for them, are not important to me--what I see is the man, the woman, the child. I see what's different, but I also see what we share.

Even still, I'm sometimes caught off-guard. We live in a 70-year-old log home; its walls are covered with layers of dusty wallpaper that peels from the ceiling in long strips. Each weekend, we tackle another room--scraping, sanding, priming, painting. In the kitchen, beneath the fake-brick wallpaper and the magenta paisley paper, we uncover a pastoral scene: horses, riders, trees, a lake. And at the water's edge? A Dutch windmill, of course, just like the ones on my photocopy.

I hope I would have discovered this way of being in the world on my own, but in truth, I think it's something I owe to becoming Avery's mama. And the thing is, I'm grateful for it. I like my eyes that see. Call it whatever you please--Italy, Holland. I like it here, and I don't want to go back.

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Just when you think you've heard it all, along comes this story out of Barrie, Ontario in Canada. 38-year-old Colleen Leduc is a single mom working hard to support herself and her 11-year-old autistic daughter, Victoria. Victoria attends Terry Fox Elementary, where she is enrolled in a special education class with five other autistic children. On May 30, one of the educational assistants who works with Victoria made a shocking allegation: the little girl was being sexually abused.

Under normal circumstances, the school's decision to call the Children's Aid Society and report this would have been appropriate. However, in this case, the EA's allegations were based solely on the word of a psychic who had never even met the child.

Leduc was shocked when she heard the allegations. "The teacher looked at me and said: 'We have to tell you something. We have to tell you that Victoria's EA went to see a psychic and the psychic asked her if she works with a little girl with the initial V. When the EA said yes, the psychic said, 'Well, you need to know that this girl is being sexually abused by a man between the ages of 23 and 26.'"

To back up the allegations, school officials pointed to Victoria's recent inappropriate sexual behavior in the classroom. Never mind the fact that this type of behavior is common in severely autistic children entering puberty and that other kids in the class were acting similarly. Leduc was told that under the Child and Family Services Act, the school is required to report suspected abuse if there are reasonable grounds. "The principal looks at me and says, 'We've called CAS.' Then I got sick to my stomach," says Leduc.

Fortunately, CAS officials have more sense and immediately dismissed the case. However, Leduc isn't completely satisfied with the resolution and is considering legal action. She assumes this is the end of it, but says she can't be sure. "Unless they take out a Ouija board and decide to do something else. They might want to take out a Ouija board or hold a seance, I'm not sure," says Leduc.

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My 5-year-old son Avery is a master of the bait-and-switch.

This is what I mean: if we're working on his words, and I say, "Cracker," he'll say, "Dadah," and I'll say, "Try again, cr...cr...cr...cracker" in my loud, clear, speech-therapy voice, and he'll say, "Yummy!" or he'll sign eat (and laugh) or even, he'll reach in and kiss me.

When we're reading, I'll ask him to think about the letters we see, about the phonics and the text, and he'll point to the pictures instead, and smile his sweet little smile, and tell me (in all earnestness) about the tiny gold bug sitting in the corner of the picture, or about the little lost mitten, and how mittens are for when its cold. "Brrr..." he'll say, and pretend to shiver. "Cold!"

And eating. He's the best of my 3 boys at pushing food around his plate. He'll sign all done, and when I ask him if he's eaten one bite of everything, he'll crinkle his elfin eyes and say, "Yes!" But when I look at his plate, I can see that his 7 beans are still 7 intact beans; only now, several of them are hiding beneath an uneaten piece of bread.

If all else fails, his go-to move is pitching a little fit. He'll throw himself to the ground, fold in half like a pocket knife (he's very flexible), and with his head in his lap, he'll cry great crocodile tears, "Wah wah wah," only every now and then he'll peek to see if anyone is watching.

Avery is my middle son. He has dark blue eyes. His hair is the color of sunlight. His bangs hang down across his forehead and his hair curls a bit at the back of his neck. His skin is so soft. More than my other children, Avery has held on to his babyhood.

He has tiny feet and small hands. Chubby fingers, still, and his soft hair reminds me of a baby. He's the only one who can still fit in my lap. He climbs up and tucks his head into my neck, resting between my chest and my chin, a perfect fit.

He's really pulling out all the stops.

The 2 little boys, Avery and Bennett, sit at the kitchen table and Tom is there and big brother Carter, too, and we are the perfect birthday scene: me carrying the homemade layer cake on a big white plate across the kitchen, everyone singing the "Happy Birthday" song. It's like a picture from a dream I had a long time ago, only it's real.

Of course, the day involved the usual mishaps. I'd briefly wondered if I should make 2 cakes, one for each boy, but quickly dismissed the idea when I realized I only had enough flour for one cake, whole wheat at that. And then there was the birthday candles gone missing, which we solved by lighting long, thin tapers in two silver candlesticks. And the fact that everyone had sniffles and what appeared to be the beginnings of a summer cold.

All of these things, blessedly ordinary.

When it was time to blow out the candles, each boy staring intently at his flame, concentrating on making the perfect wish, I wanted to make one, too, a wish and a prayer--a thank you, sent up to the heavens on the curling smoke of the twins' birthday candles.

Five years ago, it was a sunny June Sunday, an azure-blue day, a lemon-yellow day, only the babies were too small and I was whisked away in the back of an ambulance to a far-off hospital that would become the babies' first home. Days stacked up, dozens of them, and only on occasion, when I was feeling especially brave and hopeful, would I allow myself a dream like the one at my kitchen table. A day of songs and cakes and misplaced birthday candles--ordinary sniffles, the common cold and nothing else. A regular life.

Five days after the ambulance ride and the early delivery, our pediatrician touched her hand to my sleeve and said, in the nicest possible way, "Avery has Down syndrome." I didn't know what those words meant, then, and I repeated them to her, and myself, and anyone who would listen--a question and its own answer: "Avery has Down syndrome? Avery has Down syndrome."

Shortly after, it was Father's Day. Another June Sunday, this one meant to celebrate fatherhood and children and family, only that year, it felt like a cruel joke. The dream of the birthday cake and twin candles was one we only sometimes believed--there was, then, the possibility of an equally real scenario that involved another kind of day, one of grief and loss.

Five years ago and five days. Life and death, love and loss, twinned together. And fathers to celebrate. Tom's parents were helping out and we all--Tom and I, his folks, and our 4-year-old son Carter--made the trip to the NICU to see the babies that Father's Day. After, we ate at a steakhouse where they served us a giant fried onion, open like a flower, blooming in the middle of us.

What I remember most about that time is kindness washing over me like rain; kindness tucking in around me like a blanket. Strangers stopped me to tell me of another family they knew with a baby in the NICU, or with a child with Down syndrome. Books carefully placed in the black nylon pocket of the breast pump, or on top of my pile of paperwork. Words, too, like "I'm proud of you" and "I love you."

And the kindest of all was Tom with his gentle steadiness, his constant presence. Packing up the plastic baggies of milk for the babies; cooking grilled cheese sandwiches for Carter, pickle on the side, slicing the pickle into long spears, so no one would choke. Washing dishes, picking up the house, stuffing dirty clothes into the machine and dumping the powdered soap on top. All this without being asked, or asking anything in return.

We went out to eat that Father's Day five years ago because it seemed like the right thing to do. Tom said he didn't want to remember it as the day we didn't celebrate--the one year in a long string of years remarkable for what didn't happen. So we went--part bravado, part stubbornness, part desperation, part hope--which is the worst combination for digesting a rich meal. I don't think anyone ate very much.

And now we are 5. Many of the details of those early beginnings have already grown dim; what remains is vivid and bright. I see the love of a father for his grown son. I see the love of another father for his small children--a fragile situation, a precarious time, but his love is real and strong and steady. And I see that onion, unlikely flower, blooming anyway--a sign of things to come.

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My son Bennett, who is 4-years-old-going on 5, has a habit of saying, "It's a miracle!" Sometimes he says it of things that, to me, don't seem particularly miraculous, like when we find the missing rain boot, or when the VCR finishes rewinding, or when the waffle pops out of the toaster.

But other times, I'm bound to agree: watching the first green buds on the lilac bush grow into leaves and flowers; lying in the grass noticing the clouds move across the sky; stumbling upon three small blue eggs in the perfect circle of a nest hidden in the tall grass.

Bennett's twin brother, Avery, copies him and echos, "Mir-mur." Avery is two minutes older than Bennett, but you'd never guess it by looking at them, because Avery has Down syndrome.

I've been Avery's mama for nearly 5 years now, and mostly, it feels normal and ordinary to me. So when we recently met a new family, and the woman emailed me and invited us to lunch, I didn't think much of it. I wrote back and asked, "What time, and what can I bring?" She replied, and at the end of an otherwise ordinary exchange, she asked, in the nicest possible way, how she should prepare her children for Avery. What should she do? What should she say?

And there it was--a tiny stab to my heart. Why would she ask such a thing? I wondered. She'd already met Avery; couldn't she see he was just a child--no more, no less?

Being Avery's mom is a little bit like being the mom of a low-level rock star, or a minor sitcom celebrity. People have often heard something about Down syndrome, but it's not always helpful, or true--one mother I know was asked if her child spit and was a biter; I was told Avery probably only ate candy. People sometimes think our kids are always happy, or that they're angels. (One mother I know was told her child was the Bodhisattva.)

The new woman's email didn't say any of these things, of course. But I began wondering what she knew, and didn't know about Down syndrome; what she might be expecting of Avery, or me. The more I thought, the more anxious I got.

I remember feeling a similar mama-apprehension years ago, when I my oldest son Carter was a baby. I packed him into his infant carrier and pulled on my fourth-trimester jeans and my best shirt. I brushed my hair and swished mouthwash and put on lip gloss and mascara. It felt as if I were getting ready for a first date.

I can laugh about it now--those first playgroup women have been friends for years, and we joke about how we used to park all the babies in the middle of the living room like circling a wagon train, and how they would all stay there, and sometimes even sleep, which is so much easier than chasing them through a playground, or coaxing them off the highest level in the play-land, or running as fast as you can after a tiny person who has just figured out how to pump the pedals on a bike.

I write the new woman back and thank her for her questions. I tell her that the best answer is to treat Avery like any other child. I explain that he has no dietary issues or physical restrictions, and that there's nothing especially different about him, other than he's smaller than children his age (most kids just assume he's younger) and he's still learning his words, again, like a littler kid.

I tell her that Avery knows sign language (ASL), all my boys do, and that sometimes Avery signs and kids don't know what he's saying, but he's patient, and he'll keep trying until someone asks, What's Avery saying?, which is like a little game we all play (even me!) until we eventually get it figured out.

I add that in my experience, the littler children know there is something different about Avery, but they don't give it much thought. They see he likes to play, and laugh, and do kid-things, and that's good enough for them. Sometimes older kids have questions like, "What's wrong with him?" and I say, "Nothing, he just goes at a slower speed than most other kids," or "Is it contagious?" which it's not. Often, one or two children will form a close attachment to Avery and will speak for him and help him and care for him, which is always very sweet, but not necessary, though Avery loves it.

I finish the email and hit send. I hope I've been clear, but not pushy; friendly, open-hearted. Which is what I hope this other woman is trying to be, too. It's all very confusing, just like it was in the early days, when we circled the wagons--each of us trying to find common ground, for ourselves, and for the sake of our kids.

A few hours later, a reply arrives. She says they can't wait to meet Avery. Their family has been studying ASL and they're excited to have the chance to use it. I feel like Bennett: It's a miracle! The day is full of them, big and small.

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Right on the heels of the recent story about a boy with Asperger's syndrome being voted out of his classroom comes a story out of Minnesota about a 13-year-old autistic boy who's been banned from church.

According to church officials, the boy, Adam, has pushed or ran into fellow churchgoers, urinated and spit in church, and even started another person's car and started it up, revving the engine while people were standing in front of it. The church said that he is not only disruptive, but they feel he is dangerous as well, and they've gone as far as obtaining a restraining order against the family, legally barring them from attending services.

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It sounds like somebody has been watching too many reality shows. Namely, Wendy Portillo, a teacher at Morningside Elementary in Port St. Lucie, Florida. She turned her kindergarten classroom into a cruel version of Survivor by allowing her students to vote a fellow student out of the class.

The banished child is 5-year-old Alex Barton, who is in the process of being diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, a high-functioning type of autism. Not uncommon to his condition, Alex has had some behavioral issues and as a result, spends a lot of time in the principal's office.

After returning to Ms. Portillo's classroom after a recent visit with the principal, his teacher decided to punish him with humiliation. She had Alex stand at the front of the class while his fellow students listed off what they didn't like about him. After informing him that they found him "disgusting" and "annoying", the class was instructed to vote on whether or not Alex should be allowed to stay in the class. By a 14 to 2 margin, they voted him out.

Alex hasn't been back to school since then, but his mother, Melissa Barton, says he is still reliving the incident. The night after it happened, she says she overheard him saying "I'm not special" over and over.

Incredibly, an investigation by the state attorney's office concluded that Alex's treatment did not meet the criteria for emotional child abuse and no charges have been filed. I don't know what the criteria for emotional abuse is, but if this doesn't meet it, what does? My heart breaks for all the children involved in this incident.

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Sleep deprivation is a normal part of early parenthood. But for David and Shannon Lamb, sleep issues have taken on a whole new meaning. Their three-year-old son, Rhett, hasn't slept at all -- not a night, not a nap -- since he was born.

Rhett has a rare condition called chiari malformation, which his doctors believe is the cause of his sleeplessness. Patients with chiari malformation have a skull that is abnormally formed and puts pressure on the brain, causing it to protrude through the bottom of the skull. People with chiari malformation may have muscle weakness, vision problems, or coordination issues. Symptoms can range from nonexistent to severe.

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When my life was very clear and perfectly manageable and I had all the answers to everything, which is to say, back before I became a mother, I'd sometimes see other parents with their children and think, Absolutely not. I will never do that when I have children of my own.

My list of "nevers" was firm and my resolve was strong. There was equipment I was never going to buy: anything loud or squeaky; anything that took up more space in a room than a couch; anything that was made of plastic, especially products with colors so bright they made your teeth hurt.

I was never going to be one of those parents who interrupted the person they were speaking with, mid-sentence, to issue directives to their kids, stop picking your nose this instant, because it was just so rude. My children would never be fussy eaters, or unappreciative of gifts. They wouldn't say naughty things, or be mean to each other, or me.

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